The untold story of how America's brightest academic minds revolutionized intelligence analysis at the CIA
In the early days of the Cold War, the United States faced a crisis in intelligence analysis. A series of intelligence failures in 1949 and 1950, including the failure to warn about the North Korean invasion of South Korea, made it clear that gut instinct and traditional practices were no longer sufficient for intelligence analysis in the nuclear age. The new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Walter Bedell Smith, had a mandate to reform it.
Based on new archival research in declassified documents and the participants' personal papers, The Intelligence Intellectuals reveals the neglected history of how America's brightest academic minds were recruited by the CIA to revolutionize intelligence analysis during this critical period. Peter C. Grace describes how the scientifically sound analysis methods that they introduced significantly helped the United States gain an advantage in the Cold War, and these new analysts legitimized the role of the recently created CIA in the national security community. Grace demonstrates how these professors—such as William Langer from Harvard, Sherman Kent from Yale, and Max Millikan from MIT—developed systematic approaches to intelligence analysis that shaped the CIA's methodology for decades to come.
Readers interested in the history of the Cold War and in intelligence, scholars of intelligence studies, Cold War historians, and intelligence practitioners seeking to understand their craft's foundations will all value this insightful history about the place of social science in national security.
Reviews
"Powered by social science and social scientists, the Central Intelligence Agency always had an analytical edge over its authoritarian rivals. The Intelligence Intellectuals tells how the scientific method became key to US intelligence analysis. Grace's brilliant history addresses the issues and personalities that shaped the creation of the CIA."—James J. Wirtz, Naval Postgraduate School
"In this important book, Peter C. Grace highlights the crucial role social science, and scholars themselves, played in shaping the intelligence work of the early CIA. A must read for anyone interested in how and why intelligence in the United States functioned, and functions, as it does."—Daniel Bessner, Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, and author of Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual
"A masterful account. Thoroughly researched, Peter Grace's book joins Cloak and Gown and Book and Dagger in showing how Ivy League academics silently crept into the world of intelligence analysis and eventually took it over."—Greg Herken, author, The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington
"The young CIA did more than stage coups—it helped American leaders understand the real Soviet threat. Peter Grace and The Intelligence Intellectuals show how the new agency combined academic brains and military skill to make US intelligence a reliable compass for navigating the Cold War."—Michael Warner, US Department of Defense
"Arrestingly well-researched and rich in biographical detail, this remarkable book reveals that America's top spies believed in social science and hoped universities could rescue the early CIA from intelligence failure. Peter Grace excels at putting these leading thinkers into a wider context and demonstrating their importance to history."—Richard Aldrich, professor, University of Warwick, author of GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency
"This book provides fascinating insights into the intellectual and institutional labor that went into the creation of the US national security state at the onset of the Cold War. Grace focuses on Sherman Kent, the former Yale historian who created the strategic intelligence approach to tackle the thorny question of trying to understand the capabilities and intentions of the Communist adversary—with a growing emphasis over time on capabilities (both military and economic). Balancing social science methodology with the needs of policymakers was no easy task. The stakes were high: there was a real fear of a general war with the Soviet Union in the early 1950s."—Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University
"This is a terrific history of the CIA's early struggle to become a world-class intelligence agency, a quest that demanded the talents of a handful of professors and their social science skills. With admirable clarity and penetrating research, Grace shows how the CIA righted itself after a rocky start, learning how to track—and predict—the immense global forces at work in the early Cold War."—David Hoffman, author, The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
"This is both a fascinating history of the people and purposes that shaped the US approach to peacetime strategic intelligence analysis after 1945 and a reminder of the importance of a sound methodology and high integrity to make it work effectively."—Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies, King's College London
About the Author
Peter C. Grace is a lecturer on politics and international relations at the University of Otago, New Zealand. He is one of the volume editors of New Zealand's Foreign Policy under the Jacinda Ardern Government.
